Sponsorship

I get a lot of people asking me about sponsorship and shooting and how it worked for me and my experiences. If ANYONE is actually interested in this topic, leave a comment and I'll write up a thorough entry about it. Otherwise, I wont bore you.

Bueller? Bueller?

Worry

I wish I didn't worry so........ I have some things on my mind that I can't seem to shake off and let go of completely. First and foremost is getting the work done to tear down my private shooting range and get that land sold. I want that off my conscious sooo badly. All that property does now is cause me to feel anxious and worried. The exact opposite of its intended purpose. I am in the process of fixing all this, but I guess I won't feel really at peace about it until the range is completely torn down and the County no longer has an open case against me.

Secondly I think about the little things around the house I want fixed before selling it. Time and money and scheduling. Seems to be the core component to all of these things. Oh and maybe "ownership" as well. The shower and wall in the master bathroom need fixing and replacing of fixtures. The kitchen sink and fixtures need replacing. The AC unit outside needs looking at and disconnected from the PGE control program we're enrolled in. I'd like a security screen door for the front of the house. There is a soft spot on one of the balconies. The whole house needs pressure washed and cleaned.The passage door between the garage and the house needs a new lockset. And all the tore up screen doors from the cat need replacing. Man that seems like sooooo much.

Travel. Travel should be fun and magical, and it is, but you have to frontload a lot of the work. I've got Illinois already done, but still have to do Oklahoma, Spain, New Jersey and one other. And expedite my passport renewal as well.

Killer. Killer needs to get his final dental work done well. He needs to move to his new place and he needs to start college. I won't stop thinking about this until he gets the process going and successfully!

I guess this wouldn't be soo bad but for the facts that they all require 1. a metric tonne of cash to accomplish. 2. depending on someone else to actually perform the labor or actions. 3. will take months to accomplish.

Following my own dictum that "action is the best response to misfortune" only kind of works in this instance. These are really bad things that have happened to me so much as they are items that need attention or correction and if left alone will all have negative consequences. None of these things can be ignored. But let's work on them anyways!

Highest priority is getting the range done and sold. I'll sleep much better when this is done.
Next is getting my passport and travel arranged. Super D and I need to do this together soon. And budget for it.
Third should be prioritizing the house upgrades and then figuring who should do each section. I have a list, it's just picking times and people I guess to accomplish them and do it around possibly selling the house.
Fourth will be dealing with K. This one should require the least outside assistance and is also the simplest in my opinion.

Not sure if I feel better now that I've gotten this all out there, but I did. Next few steps are on me!

Como se dice 'vrrooom' en espanol?

While I was doing my study abroad in Spain I rented a motorcycle for a weekend and took some rides out into the countryside north of Madrid and into the Sierra de la Guadarrama mountains. Here are some snippets from the GoPro video I took while goofing off.

A lot of the country side reminded me of northern California and the Sierra Nevada mountains. All I know is it was a fun adventure to be riding around in the mountains in a new country. How can you beat that for a break from studying??

M Proust

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

I like this quote quite a bit but at the same time I don't like it because I want new landscapes. Not new eyes. I am choosing to read it as that I should not just view new landscapes with my old eyes but that new things should also be viewed with new eyes.

Change my scenery and change myself.

You know who else would ride a zipline upside down?

My mom! (Muscleman voice from Regular Show)

My mom would be proud of my upside down playground toy riding.


A joke I heard when I took a Skip Barber racing class went like this, "What's the difference between a rental car and a 4-wheel drive? A rental car can go anywhere." I kind of feel the same way about a rental a bicycle as well.

Sharks

What happens when a shark stops moving? It dies. To most who know me personally, you know I'm anxious to move away from not only San Diego but California. For a good handful of reasons.
-Income Taxes
-No Family Lives in CA
-Political Climate/Gun Laws/Land Use
-Desire for Change (And Hope! hahaha)
-Personal Growth that Comes with Change
-SD Makes You a Weather Wuss
-Increase in Personal Exposure/Opportunities in Shooting

Having been living in Spain for the past month has only solidified my desire to move as soon as is appropriate. Not that I am in love with Spain but it has been a bit of gasoline on my rambling fire living and studying here. As if I needed any more fuel......

What has Spain taught me though about all of these feelings and desires? Well that I am more of a country mouse than a city mouse. That I need trees, mountains, seasons. That I can live without the beach. I like the beach swell (pun intended) but not as much as I like mountains. Blame it on my up bringing. Also that I prefer to live on the edge of a city or in a middle size town. Living in a big city, Madrid has a population similar to San Diego at 3 million people, taking the metro and not driving, never seeing anything but concrete and steel, well that just doesn't give me the same inner happiness that even the suburbs do let alone actually living somewhere I can drive, have grass, a yard and such. White picket fence anyone?

I guess I'd prefer to live in a smaller town, more "rural" and go into town for travel or culture than I'd prefer to live in the city and escape to nature when needed. But that also made me ask myself, could I live in Spain? Though I have found the food frankly horrible for 80% of the time, I could. It wouldn't take much longer in study and full time residence that I'd be totally happy doing stuff all in Spanish. I've already adapted well to the timing and pacing of life here in Spain. Heck, I've been driving around and doing stuff without ever checking a map or metro table. And I can just dead reckon my way through town now as well. It used to be that I knew Rome, Baghdad or maybe London the best of foreign cities but now it is easily Madrid that I can operate in seamlessly. Which makes the prospect of coming back in October interesting.

Ramble ramble. I have some sleep to catch up on and a little bit of Spanish homework to do as well before my test at 1300 tomorrow. I'd be happy to get a C out of this class to be honest, but I'd prefer a B of course. An A is out of the question as I just haven't put in the time or found the structure that would have worked for me to accomplish that, all on me.

Want to know more? Email, text, FB, Instagram or whatever. I'm out there and approachable.

Spain blog photo dump

So it is a work in progress, but if you want a ton of photos without a lot of context you can get them here:
http://rowdyenmadrid.blogspot.com.es/ My Spain Blog